> this is very literally about the first steps in how brains evolved
Well, no; they even highlighted this section:
> “Intelligence, according to some, is a biological function that evolved not with humans or brains but way back in some form to the earliest organisms, a fundamental biological function like respiration.”
It would definitely connect to how brains evolved, but the article and the main idea are a lot broader than that.
> It's akin to theories of abiogenesis like the one involving clay crystals "reproducing"
Well no; unless the clay crystals are producing interesting electrical oscillations.
> it's steep to say this is about minds, which only works if we accept the various parts of the article that urge us to stop being so egotistical and anthropocentric as to expect that a mind should be capable of doing something clever.
It's not clever to live for 2,000 years? And, are only clever people worthy of the label of having a mind? ... Because I know an awful lot of people with no interest in doing anything particularly clever.
And yes, your comment is anthropocentric... Definitively so. Whether something has a "mind" depends on the definition used, and if you define that as "what humans call clever", then yeah you're being anthropocentric.
> this is very literally about the first steps in how brains evolved
Well, no; they even highlighted this section:
> “Intelligence, according to some, is a biological function that evolved not with humans or brains but way back in some form to the earliest organisms, a fundamental biological function like respiration.”
It would definitely connect to how brains evolved, but the article and the main idea are a lot broader than that.
> It's akin to theories of abiogenesis like the one involving clay crystals "reproducing"
Well no; unless the clay crystals are producing interesting electrical oscillations.
> it's steep to say this is about minds, which only works if we accept the various parts of the article that urge us to stop being so egotistical and anthropocentric as to expect that a mind should be capable of doing something clever.
It's not clever to live for 2,000 years? And, are only clever people worthy of the label of having a mind? ... Because I know an awful lot of people with no interest in doing anything particularly clever.
And yes, your comment is anthropocentric... Definitively so. Whether something has a "mind" depends on the definition used, and if you define that as "what humans call clever", then yeah you're being anthropocentric.